Drought vulnerability in the United States
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Keywords: Drought, vulnerability, United States
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Johanna Engström, University of Florida
Keighobad Jafarzadegan, University of Alabama
Hamid Moradkhani, University of Alabama
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Abstract
Drought is one of the most severe natural hazards globally and in the U.S. Despite being ranked as the 3rd most costly hazard type (1980-2022) in NOAA’s national ranking, drought impacts get less attention than more visually damaging natural hazards, such as tornadoes and wildfires.
This study assesses drought vulnerability in the U.S. Analyzing indicators of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, states are ranked according to their relative drought vulnerability, and factors are identified that contribute to reduce or worsen the impact of a drought on an individual state. The result is a geographically heterogeneous map, where the differences in vulnerability can mainly be attributed to variations in the individual states’ sensitivity and adaptive capacity to the drought.
Drought vulnerability in the United States
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Paper Abstract
